Diabetes is a one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. and the number and percentage of U.S. population with diabetes is rapidly increasing. Today, 25.8 million children and adults—8.3% of the U.S. population—have diabetes. The number will reach 366 million by 2030, according to the World Health Organization. the total medical costs annually in the U.S. for diabetes exceeded $100 billion.
There are mainly three types of diabetes: type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes. Among them, type 2 diabetes, also referred to as non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM), represents more than 90% of all diabetes patients. Insulin is a hormone that regulates the body metabolism mainly by promoting the absorption of glucose from the blood to muscles and other tissues. Type 2 diabetes is characterized with insulin resistance, which is a diminished ability of insulin to exert its biologic action on regulating glucose. Insulin resistance, related strongly to a sedentary lifestyle, is also associated with a variety of abnormalities including obesity, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and hyperuricemia. Thus, there is a clear need to develop diabetes therapies.
However, current therapeutic strategies for diabetes, especially type 2 diabetes are limited and major anti-diabetic agents generally suffer from inadequate efficacy and high side effects. Side effects from diabetes drugs are often severe, which include hypoglycemia, lactic acidosis, idiosyncratic liver cell injury, permanent neurological deficit, digestive discomfort, headache, dizziness, and even death. For instance, pioglitazone, rosiglitazone, two widely used diabetes drugs, are found to promote weight gain, a major adverse event associated with these two drugs' effects on adipose cell differentiation and triglyceride storage.
There is an urgent and strong need to develop an effective therapy with few adverse effects for diabetes patients.